The cult leader told his followers he wanted them to go on a killing spree. On August 8, 1969, a few members of the cult headed to a Beverly Hills home and murdered five people, including actress Sharon Tate. They wrote the word “PIG” in Tate’s blood on the door. The violence continued the next night when Rosemary and Leno LaBianca were murdered in their Los Feliz home by Manson’s followers on his orders. Rosemary was stabbed 14 times.

The Branch Davidians had a 51-day standoff with the FBI.

David Koresh believed that he could talk to God. He also thought that the world was ending. The cult leader managed to convince more than 100 people to move to a compound outside of Waco, Texas, and follow his teachings (which included his belief that men could have multiple wives, including girls as young as 10).

“There was sexual abuse for myself from the age of 4, not just from my dad who got convicted, but from various other members of the cult, some related, some not,” Verity Carter, who grew up in the cult, told BBC News. “I wasn’t comfortable with the things being done to me but if I asked a question I got beaten or put on silence restriction. I was punished a lot because I was never able to stop asking questions.”

Berg died in 1994. The Children of God later rebranded and changed its name to the Family of Love, and later The Family International after it had been labelled a cult and was investigated by the FBI and Interpol.

Jim Jones founded The People’s Temple and instructed all of his followers to drink cyanide-laced Flavour Aid. More than 900 people died.